The projects will be funded by a $200 million initiative that the European nation, perhaps best known for its financial services industry, is launching in hopes of "increasing the ability to administer the right drug to the right patient at the right time and in the right dose."

Working with the University of Luxembourg, the Institute for Systems Biology will create the Center for Systems Biology Luxembourg, which will work on two projects. One will map the genomes of at least 100 individuals and develop new methods to understand the role of genetic variations in disease, while a second project will take what is learned and apply it in order to predict and treat disease.

The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, meanwhile, will participate in launching the Luxembourg Project Lung Cancer, in order to develop new ways to diagnose lung cancer at earlier stages.

The Institute for Systems Biology and Fred Hutchinson projects also will work with a third Luxembourg-funded project, the Integrated BioBank of Luxembourg, which will amass a full range of tissue samples that researchers will be able to access.

In an interview from Luxembourg, Leroy Hood, the president of the Institute for Systems Biology, said that the government of Luxembourg "had an interest in health care and biotechnology, and they asked one of their consultants to make recommendations about U.S. institutes" that could participate.

"They really reached out to us," he said.

His colleague, David Galas, a professor at the Institute for Systems Biology, said: "We're going to be doing research projects in Seattle, but there will be a collaborative effort with some of the institutions in Luxembourg, particularly the University of Luxembourg.

"It's a large, ambitious project focused on several components of research that are central to our interest (at) the Institute for Systems Biology."